The Lighthouse
by writerfan2013
Summary: Joan and loss and realisation. AU in which Holmes' father does not exist. Set after S2. Reichenbach. Yes, I went there. let me know what you think! -Sef
1. Chapter 1

When someone leaves without a goodbye, you carry on, waiting for it, watching the front door, expecting every minute to finish the argument. When someone leaves without a goodbye, you expect them, dammit, to come back.

Joan has a lot of regrets. She regrets that her last words to him were on the steps of the brownstone, yelling in his face to get out of her life. She regrets the harsh words she used, calling him selfish, a liar, detached from reality - even though every word is true. She regrets not sprinting after him and grabbing him in the street and saying for God's sake Holmes where are you going?

And she had not even known about the plane crash until the lawyer's letter arrived to give her the powers of executrix. Weeks had passed and her fury has changed to annoyance, then incredulity at his complete disregard for her, then a slow, heavy worry.

The letter was dry as chalk in her hand. It gave references and cross checks so that she might satisfy herself as to all the facts before proceeding. And then it invited her to become the manager of the Holmes estate, charging her with finding an heir since both brothers were now missing, presumed dead.

That final word made her sit down hard on the third step, jarring her spine.

Dead.

Her, shrieking hurt and fury in his face.

Dead.

Him, biting his lip and refusing to answer, his eyes flickering in the gales of her rage like the candles of an ancient lighthouse, wavering in a great sea storm.

Dead.

It was not like this with Mycroft, who was not really dead. Who now Joan had to find, and tell.

Dead.

She placed her hands one either side of her, flat on the stair, and faced the blank front door. Gone, truly gone, and he never said goodbye. She took a breath and said, because from this moment on she would have to get used to saying it in spite of the pain, "Sherlock."

She thinks often of this moment, the letter, and so far it has not grown any easier.


	2. Chapter 2

The door bell rings and rings until Joan exclaims and goes downstairs to the kitchen where the noise is only a faint clatter. She sits at the table rubbing her temples and looking through the French doors to the bedroom Sherlock never slept in. His bed is still empty.

Eventually the doorbell stops. A sharp click echoes in the front hall, and Joan jumps up. The door slams.

The lock has been picked. Joan's knees collapse but before she can clutch the edge of the table, Moriarty strolls in.

"You." Joan drops into her chair. Her heart is pounding like a printing press, endlessly stamping out the news: Sherlock Still Dead.

"Evidently."

Moriarty's hair is a mess. Not artful, Bonham Carter look at me I'm so mad a mess, but a proper disaster: some parts brushed, others tangled, all of it dull and most of it dirty. It slops out of its ponytail. Moriarty is wearing a black jacket and black jodphurs and black riding boots like a pastiche of a Nazi henchman, and carrying a large velvet drawstring bag like a real life crazy person.

Joan considers asking Moriarty what she wants, but it is a waste of energy. Morrissey will tell her, or kill her, and Joan cannot prevent either, so she just waits.

"Where is he?" says Moriarty.

"Nowhere," says Joan. "There's a memorial stone in Central Park if you want to see that."

Moriarty flicks a hand. "No but really. I know he will have told you. I've looked everywhere, my people have searched for a month. Where is he?"

Joan blinks. The woman's eyes are bloodshot and watery. Her hands tremble on the ridiculous bag. She obviously has not slept in a long time. "Sherlock is gone," Joan says.

"No. I would know if he were dread. I would feel it."

Joan laughs, the only laugh she has left, a cracked sound like a discarded envelope rattling a trash can. "I don't believe in feelings."

Jamie Moriarty stares. Her blue eyes grow wider still, scanning Joan like Sherlock's once did: the urgency of the clue.

Then she droops. "He didn't tell you," she whispers. "It isn't a trick."

She reaches into the velvet bag and draws out a large pair of shears.

Joan curls her lip. ,"Whatever you're going to do, just do it," she says. "I'm too tired for games."

"No game," says Moriarty, and hacks off her ponytail.


	3. Chapter 3

Joan grabs at the shears but Moriarty dodges, and continues to chop and slash at her hair. Tufts of pale gold drift to the kitchen floor. "Stop that!"

"No."

"Do I have to wrestle you for them?"

"Yes please." Now Moriarty is crying, the shears dangling from her small fingers, sobs shaking her body. She cries like a six year old, upright but limp, racked with misery.

Joan retrieves the shears and throws them in the sink. Moriarty's hair is now two or three inches long all over, except for one savage patch of nothing. "Enough," Joan says. "I'm making tea."

Moriarty slumps against the counter, then sees Sherlock's bedroom. When Joan turns with the teacups, Moriarty is arranged neatly on the sofa in there, like an intern awaiting their assessment, her face and body composed except for the pain in her eyes.

Joan sits beside her. They sip tea. It is surreal, but no more so than the rest of the past month.

"Two widows," says Moriarty.

"Hardly," says Joan.

"I need a drink," says Moriarty.

"This is a sober house," says Joan.

"Is it?"

Joan stares at her. Moriarty is enchanting, even with the car crash hair. Her terrible history is invisible behind her sly beauty.

"I need my bag," Moriarty says, in a tone of assumptive command so like Sherlock's that Joan just goes.

They sit, their backs to the smooth bed, and swallow brandy from Moriarty's hip flask. Moriarty sinks a little sideways with every sip, and Joan's head begins a slow painful throb. Her throat is burning.

"I miss him," Moriarty says. Her weight is on Joan's shoulder. She lifts her face and gives Joan the full blue eyes lip tremble single tear treatment. "You're my last connection to him, Joan."

Joan knows exactly what this is about but cannot shake off the weighty sense of Destiny lent by the brandy. It is like seeing your test grades on ridged vellum, the clumsy black type encapsulating your past efforts and probable future in a few terse lines: Found Sherlock, Found his nemesis, Lost Sherlock, Only nemesis remains. When Moriarty puts her hand on Joan's knee it feels inevitable.

Hugging your psychotic enemy in a weepfest of unhealthily repressed grief is one of the stupidest ideas Joan has ever heard. But Moriarty is clever and beautiful and completely right about the link to Sherlock, and this is not about sex, it is about love, and sadness.

It cannot last and so soon they are sitting, Moriarty more or less on Joan's lap, the flask in easy reach, and Joan is smoothing Moriarty hair in an automatic gesture of comfort and Moriarty is saying, "His kisses were always so awkward. Weren't they?"

"I never kissed him," Joan says.

"I know. I just wanted to hear you admit it." She swigs. "Still so jealous, even now."

"You knew that part of Sherlock," Joan says. "I knew his professional side. Only."

"Yeah, you tell yourself that, girl."

Joan sighs. She dislikes how accurate Moriarty is. "You need to go. I'll call you a cab."

"I want to stay," says Moriarty. She wriggles off Joan's lap and prowls the room. "I want to sleep in his bed."

"No!"

Moriarty spins to face Joan. "We can share," she suggests.

"No! I just, I, you know very well that there is too much alcohol and high emotion in this situation." Joan has not touched Sherlock's bed since he died. Even without Moriarty's unsubtle overtures, Joan is not getting onto or into it.

"Ah Joan. It's just for comfort. You are as broad minded as Sherlock, I know the idea doesn't offend you."

"You offend me. And the brandy is wearing off."

"Pity. And yes, it is." Moriarty wanders to the bed. She trails her hand over the covers.

"Leave it!" Joan says, in a squeak of outrage.

"Make me."

"Oh my god stop with the stupid flirting. I don't want you in his bed."

"That's the first honest thing you've said all night, darling."

"Just go, please." Joan moves to place herself between Moriarty and the bed.

Moriarty steps close to Joan. "Very well. This time I'll go. But you know you long for comfort, for remembrance, as much as I." She kisses Joan on the lips before Joan can duck, then marches out. A few moments later, the front door bangs.

Joan topples forward, a domino approaching the point of no return and teetering there, waiting for the push. But there is nobody to push her, so she lets go and falls face first onto Sherlock's bed. It smells of laundry and dust, not of him, although he did use that laundry powder for his clothes too.

She breathes. She never slept in this bed and neither did he. Why has she been treating it as a sacred object? He would think that ludicrous.

She rolls over and stretches out on her back. The pillows dig into her neck. Something is scratching her. She reaches round and her hand finds paper, a folded page lying inside the pillowcase.

A note. _Watson_ , it says in Sherlock tight, firm script. _I calculate you will find this within three days of my apparent demise. That being the case, act at once. You will need resources for the task ahead. I realise this will be distasteful to you, but if you love me, for God's sake do it. You must, I repeat must, contact Moriarty._


	4. Chapter 4

The ship was far out in the Pacific when they found it. Not physically. Joan sat with her brother's contacts from import/export in a glaring office in Hong Kong, and watched numbers buzzing on a screen like the flies she had to keep swatting away. She had expected a dot on a recognisable map, a blinking blob, perhaps making a ping, like in a movie. But instead it was just coordinates, and only the ship tracking expert could read it.

"We're lucky," he said. "She's only just come back into radio reach."

"Can we hail her," said Joan.

The guy rolled his eyes. "This isn't Long John Silver."

Joan blinked away frustration, and jet lag. "Ok, how do we make contact."

"We don't," said the guy. He tapped his screen. Red Chinese characters blinked beside the name of the ship. "This vessel is in a piracy situation."

"Crap," said Joan.

She took out her phone. She was not in the habit of ignoring Sherlock's instructions. But that had been when he was alive. With him dead, specifically, with him fake dead, she felt at liberty to pick and choose her moves.

But finally it had come to this. She had arrived at the point where she did in fact have to call on someone with expertise in the criminal side of life, that was to say, Moriarty.

"Hold on a sec."

A smooth British voice addressed her. Joan looked up from her phone and saw a tall, thin figure in a white suit and some awful sunglasses.

She drew breath, let it blow away. "Hello, Mycroft."

* * *

There are some people you encounter in life who bring you joy and pain in equal measure - whose mission it seems to be to challenge your capacity to love and forgive. Mycroft was not one of those people. He made Joan's shit list around two years previously and never risen from it.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed as Mycroft flashed around a laminated card which made everybody leave the room, like a badly dressed Doctor Who.

"Preventing you from making a very grave mistake. It's lovely to see you again, Joan. How have your been?"

"Grieving. How about you, not so much, I guess."

"We need to bring that ship into Manila," Said Mycroft. "It's on a course for Shanghai. And that would be a disaster."

Joan levelled her most withering gaze at him. "Where's Sherlock?"

"I have no idea. That was your department."

"I'm not involved in whatever this is. I'm just the one who had to execute the will of my best friend. By the way, you were presumed dead, so you didn't get your half."

"Sherlock didn't give you a pickup location?" For the first time Mycroft looked worried.

"No," said Joan. "Tell me what's going on."

"It's top secret," said Mycroft.

"Just do it," said Joan, folding her arms.

There was a long pause.

"It concerns the possible exposure of one of our greatest secrets," Mycroft said . "I was tasked with bringing this information onto British soil, but there were problems. Sherlock... Had unique skills for its recovery."

"The secret," said Joan. "It's on that ship?"

"We believe so."

"The ship which is currently overrun by pirates?"

"Yes."

"Then three guesses where Sherlock will be," said Joan.

Mycroft stared at her. "My god," he breathed. "Of couse, you're right."

The office door crashed open. Apparently laminated authority wore off after a while. "The ship," said the tracking expert. Resuming his seat. "It's changed course."

Joan looked at the screen but still could make no sense of it.

The expert grinned. "The pirates have over reached themselves this time. They're on a heading straight into Chinese waters."

"Why is that good?" said Joan.

"Oh no," said Mycroft.

"We operate a zero tolerance for piracy in Chinese territory," said the expert. "We'll blow them right out of the water."


	5. Chapter 5

The wheels of diplomacy turn slowly or not at all. China was, it seemed, especially burdened with bureaucracy.

"So," said Joan, "we've tried the official route."

"And the official unofficial route," said Mycroft. He looked irritated. "Apparently there is no way on earth we can persuade the Chinese to make an exception to their policy."

"So we just watch while this ship is sunk and Sherlock on it!"

"And the secret," said Mycroft.

"What a pity I already despised you," said Joan. "It really leaves me nowhere else to go."

"We must get the secret onto British soil."

"I don't give two hoots for British soil," said Joan.

Mycroft shuffled uneasily. "Then what?"

"Then," said Joan, "we need to find the right palm to grease. And luckily for you, I have some unofficial, unofficial contacts." She picked up her phone and dialled the number she'd found in there after Moriarty's visit. . "Hello, Jamie," she said, surprising herself with her own easy duplicity. "Good news."

* * *

"The ship's changed course," said Mycroft. "It's out of Chinese waters. I'm sending a team in."

"The piracy status light has gone off." said Joan, looking at the screen. It showed the ship's name, the MV Reichenbach, and that name was now in green. Moriarty had paid off the pirates. Or done something, and Joan found she did not care what.

"It will probably still be a rescue, not a victory," said Mycroft. "Sherlock's best chance is to get the documents and ditch into a safety capsule, and let us pick him up. Fingers crossed, eh?" He chuckled as if it were not a human being he spoke of, a person who despite everything probably lived and breathed and was his blood kin.

And Joan drew a breath she had been saving up for a long time, and punched Mycroft in the face.


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock came out on a stretcher like a dead person, and Joan watched. He turned his head weakly towards her but she stayed where she was, her feet safe on the deck, her heart safe beating in her chest, no outpouring, no dramatic reunion with his. He had ripped his heart from her and left her to suffer. He would be ok.

He enjoyed many benefits. Firstly there were medics, who accurately assessed that he would not die. Secondly, instant domestic immunity. No waiting around at baggage claim for him. And lastly, he had plucky daredevil hero status.

Not much made Joan want to spit, but that did.

The hero of the Reichenbach. Right.

Heroes of course can get away with anything. Treat you like dirt and then turn up late to the party and still claim a giant piece of birthday cake. Wallow in dung and come up smiling like they tripped and fell into an actress on the red carpet on Oscar night.

While governments and criminals scrambled for the secret kept on board the Reichenbach, Joan packed yet another bag and prepared to follow Sherlock, wherever they were taking him.

She would take the airplane costs out of Mycroft's share of the will.

* * *

"He's gone far away," said the doctor in the very-difficult-to-access military hospital Hawaii.

Joan fanned herself with her hat and regarded Sherlock clinically. He lay on the bed, no sheet - too warm - and stared at the ceiling. His eyeballs tracked something there, left to right, left to right, but Joan could see no fly, nothing to keep Sherlock's attention.

He had stowed away on board the Reichenbach for nearly a month. His existence had been reduced to a coffin-sized capsule, and his supplies were protein bars and drinking water - enough for a week. His guts were a mess. His cheekbones, always delicately defined, now jutted beneath his hollow eyes. The medics were rehydrating him, but he had yet to speak.

The doctor said, "It's physical stress leading to mental overload. The mind is a part of the body, you know."

"I know," and for Sherlock it was more true than anyone. The body was a mere vessel for his mind, and as much add he kept it in shape, it was to the benefit of his intellect, not his biceps.

"What can be done," Joan asked. "To help."

Her phone rang. Mycroft. "The secret is gone," he said.

Joan laughed. "Moriarty took payment in advance," she said. "Serve you right."

"No. I mean it's there, but destroyed. The documents are illegible, unrecoverable."

Joan waited a beat or two. "Mycroft," she said, "Don't call me." She put the phone away and turned again to the doctor. "Sorry. We were talking about Sherlock's recovery."

"He will do best in a familiar environment," said the doctor. "He has been in isolation and near-suffocation in his hiding place. He needs simulation from familiar things."

"He can come to my home," said Joan. Sherlocks haunted eyes swivelled to her. "I own a brownstone in New York city."

The doctor whistled. "Nice."

"It was an inheritance," said Joan.


	7. Chapter 7

"In a way it was a good thing that you didn't find me straight away," said Sherlock.

He propped himself cautiously in the wing chair, still gaunt and weak, but upright. The day before, he'd shaved. And started talking.

"You are unbelievable." Joan, leaning on the wall opposite, folded her arms and glared at Sherlock and it was almost like old times, bad old times. She got a grip, applied logic. "You destroyed the secret documents, didn't you," she said.

"I knew you would pay Moriarty with them. So yes. All bar a small segment, which she now possesses. Scandalous, but relatively harmless stuff, I assure you."

"You double crossed the British government and Moriarty." Joan shook her head.

Sherlock gave a slow blink. "Best not to speak that out loud. I'm sure you have swept for bugs but still, I'd hate either set of assassins to show up here thirsty for revenge."

Joan took this in. "You knew all along what the secret was."

"I guessed. I calculated that wherever it was, it was so dangerous that it lived in a ship rather than be stored on land. And I decided to remove it from, shall we say, temptation."

Joan narrowed her eyes. "And faking your death was the best way."

"It was not intended to be permanent." His body was still, but his eyes darted about, as they had at the hospital. He glanced at her face and away, but also left to right, left to right.

"Oh, that's ok then."

"And like I said, things worked out fine."

"Explain," said Joan dangerously. "And explain well."

Sherlock brought his gaze deliberately to hers. "Well, in that time I got to read all the documents I was smuggled with."

"Fantastic. "

"And memorise them," said Sherlock.

Joan blinked. His trauma. His refusal, at first, to speak. His terror, until they delivered him back here and let him alone. -His brain, full to the brim.

"You're the secret," she said.

"I am now."

"Who knows?" she demanded.

"Just you."

The correct answer, at last. "Well, that's something."

"I think so." He paused. "There's something else, Watson, something I ought to say to you."

"I'm a little done with revelations right now." But she waited, as she always did.

"You brought me back, Watson. Whenever I thought the Reichenbach or the secret, the terrible secret, would destroy me utterly, I pictured your face, and heard your voice, speaking to me, and you guided me back to myself. I was a ship foundering on rocks of the most awful consequence, and you were my lighthouse."

"Huh," said Joan. "That sounds a lot like your usual BS."

"I assure you it is the truth. Your face and your words kept me sane, preserved me as the man you see before you today." He lifted one hand and gestured about, in a trembling echo of his old ebullience.

Joan sighed. Here it was. The start of the conversation, their conversation, which came in bursts and gaps and silences but never ended, not with arguments, not even with death. She drew breath, and raised her eyebrows at Sherlock. "OK. So what was I saying, when I was guiding you back?"

His mouth twisted to a smile and his eyes brightened with familiar mischief.

She pursed her lips.

"Well," said Sherlock. "There was quite a lot, but it inevitably began with, _You are unbelievable_."

* * *

"Are you ok?" She called through the crack in his bedroom door, softly in case, improbably, he was already asleep.

"Hmm." His voice emerged from the dim room.

"Do you have everything you need?" Joan pushed open the door a little. Sherlock was fully clothed, but stretched out, does and all, on his bed. That was something.

"Not quite," he said.

She advanced to his bedside, full of habitual concern, before she realised that this was the sequel to an old argument. "Sherlock, no." This had sent him from the brownstone, her shrieking after him. This was ancient history.

"Watson, yes." He beckoned her to his bedside. She came, she sat. He took her hand. "I ask only this." He nodded at the pillows, his completely dressed state. "For comfort."

"I feel like I've provided a reasonable amount of comfort these last few weeks," she said. Not to mention medical care.

Sherlock shook his head, and brought her knuckles to his rough cheek. "Not my comfort, Watson. Yours."

She let him draw her down to lie beside him, their noses almost touching, eye contact unavoidable. "I'm sorry I caused you any pain," Sherlock said. "Even for three days, even for one moment."

She said nothing.

He watched her face a while, then without asking, reached up and arranged her hair over her cheek the way he thought it should be. He closed his eyes.

She lay listening to him breathe, still a miracle, that he had never been dead and somehow still wasn't. Gratitude warred with hurt in her heart. Was it time to forget old promises, which had not been kept on either side, and begin again with new ones? Could comfort emerge from pain?

She did not know, but Sherlock must have heard her sigh, for he opened his eyes and gazed at her, all defiance gone, leaving only gentleness. He lay his hand on her shoulder, to see if she would accept it.

She nodded, not defeat, just permission, and put her palm likewise on his painful ribs.

"Good night, Watson."

"Good night."


End file.
